ABSTRACT
Soulier wrote that he could 'no longer do battle with the insurgents', for the guerrillas' many victories had 'made themlose their fear' of the French. Marshall Bessieres, the commander of Napoleon's northern forces headquartered in San Sebastian, agreed. The French attacked the peasantry of the Montana, the 'congenial sea' that had given birth to and nurtured the guerrillas. On 5 February 1812, the Spanish guerrilla Mina trapped Napoleon's best counter-insurgency force, General Soulier's 'Infernals', in the hills of eastern Navarre. In Napoleon's own way, the guerrillas forced Napoleon to forfeit his numerical advantage in the Peninsular War. Francisco Espoz y Mina's Division of Navarre was the largest and most effective guerrilla force in Spain, but it was by no means the only one. Historians have ascribed various admirable ideals to the guerrillas. The most common and most persuasive claim is that Spaniards rose up, perhaps roused and led by the clergy, to save the Church.
